Ironworks Gaming Forum - Mages in SoU and HotU..

If you have never played a magic user before, I would recommend going with a wizard vs a sorveror for several reasons. First, even though a sorceror gets more spells to use per day, he/she has less spells available to memorize or know. Both sorcerors and wizards can use any spell scroll (unless in prohibited school if specialized wizard, I think), but sorcerors cannot learn spells from scrolls like wizards. Wizards have to memorize spells each day, but potentially have a much wider range of spells available. This is good if you have never played a magic user since it gives you a chance to try a lot of different spells and figure out what works with your style of play. On the other hand, if you already know you are going to want to do a lot of direct damage and 'blasting,' then a sorceror might have an advantage. I played a wizard in the OC and it seemed that the most useful offensive spells were the direct damage type. Confuse, charm, dominate, fear etc don't seem to be as useful as they were in Baldur's Gate for example.

Two other advantages to the wizard vs. a sorceror to be aware of, though, are first that with intelligence as your primary attribute, you will get extra skill points. This can be quite an advantage if used strategically. Second, wizards get access to the next higher level of spells a character level or two earlier than sorcerors. So those devastating level 9 spells come earlier!

Spell craft is an important skill to keep maxed, especially if fighting other magic users. It allows you to identify spells cast against you. It also gives you a +1 to defense rolls for spells cast against you, for every 5 levels of spellcraft. It is also important when you become eligible for epic spells, since there are minimum spellcraft levels to get the epic spells like HellBall etc.

Concentration is another important skill for spell casters since it modifies spell failure vs success. Anything that enhances the chance of success of your spells is important. I like to keep this maxed. There is a -4 penalty to spell success rolls if your are in or near melee combat and concentration helps this. Taking the combat casting feat eliminates the melee penalty for spell success. I would take it even though you will be avoiding any melee combat. That is what henchmen, summoned creatures and some familiars like the panther are for.

Take the crossbow or sling as your weapon, since you will need something else (ranged!) to do damage when you run out of spells, which will happen frequently at low character levels. Long bow would be great, except you would have to expend a feat just to get the proficiency.

As far as feats go, you might take a weapon focus in crossbow or sling, just to be that much more effective. I really found maximize spell and empower spell to be useful, but not until I was a higher level spell caster. These will make some of the mid level direct damage spells really devastating. Extend spell can be usefull too, especially to extend the time your defensive spells (barkskin, stoneskin or haste, for example) last, although I didn't use it a lot.

Spell penetration is another helpful feat, to increase the success against an opponents spell resistance. Helpful. Spell focus increases the difficulty rating of your spells, so harder to resist, but only within the spell school chosen. Good if you cast a lot of spells from a particular school and those spells can be resisted.

Still spell and silent spell sound great, but don't end up being useful in single player since the NPC's never seem to cast silence and rarely has paralyzation been a problem, at least not enough for me to make it worthwhile. If you duel in multiplayer and face bards or someone who can cast silence, then silent spell is probably necessary.

These all, of course, are my opinions. Others may have different observations. You may decide differently after you have played a spell caster, but they are things to think about.